


Something to Do On A Friday Night

by youwilllovemylaugh



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 22:28:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1527992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youwilllovemylaugh/pseuds/youwilllovemylaugh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that Natasha's dating Clint, Steve has to find someone new to pass the time with on Friday nights.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something to Do On A Friday Night

Natasha found him after his intro to ethics class and immediately began badgering him about this kid she kept calling Bucky.

“He’s equally reluctant,” she said after Steve rolled his eyes.

“So why are you trying to force me down his throat, then?” Steve asked. She followed him into his dorm room, and shut the door behind them. He lived alone, like he had preferred ever since his parents died.

“Because I think you’ll get along,” Natasha said. “And he’s new here, he needs friends.”

Steve shot her a look of gentle skepticism. “How do you know this guy?”

He watched her tense up. “We went to high school together,” she said, her tone vague enough to elicit a sigh from Steve’s lips. “Oh, come on, Steve, don’t be like that. You need a little spicing up around here” – he watches as she looks around at the lone desk, only chair, the dresser, the single bed – “and you can’t always rely on me to pull you out of your funks.”

“I thought I could always count on you,” he said, and instantly felt petulant, like a small whining child. He knew the facts: things had been heating up with Clint, the guy on the archery team who liked to sit in the center of the campus dining hall and talk loudly, who liked to poke fun at Steve with a brash abandon he didn’t like even when Natasha used it. But Clint was intimidating, and wildly brilliant on top of that, and it made sense to Steve that Natasha would give up on him in favor of Clint. He was everything Steve wasn’t.

“You’re gonna need someone to spend your nights with,” Natasha said, knocking her knuckles into Steve’s shoulder. Steve had to fight an eye roll. Ever since Natasha had taken that gender studies class last semester, she had been trying to get Steve to question himself more, to explore himself.

“It’ll be good for you, it’ll shake things up a bit,” she’d said. Natasha had been out with women more than a few times – more than Steve had been, as of late – before she settled on Clint. All of this only fueled her argument that Steve should go out and, in her words, “actively question himself.”

“Tash, how many times do I have to say it?” he said, and she flopped down on the bed. “I know I’m –”

“Okay, okay,” she cut him off, holding her hands up in surrender. “Just as friends, then. You’re still going to need a wing man for when you _do_ go out.”

She’d used this line, too, before, when she’d set him up with Tony Stark, a brazen, cocky, wealthier-than-was-necessary sonofabitch who she thought Steve would like because they’d both lost their parents. (Really, Steve thought he belonged in Clint’s crowd of bullies, but when he’d asked if Tony knew Clint, he’d only scoffed pompously at his name.) She had used it again when she backed out of plans to hang out with Steve and Thor Odinson, a large, ridiculous foreign kid who, while nice enough, had no idea how strong he was or how much person he was, and just generally overwhelmed Steve to the point of exhaustion. The only time Steve had actually liked the guy Natasha had fooled him into hanging out with was Sam Wilson, but he’d left school at the end of last semester to join the Air Force. Sometimes, he still wrote Steve letters, all of which Steve kept and replied to – initially to prove to Natasha that he was making an effort, and then because he genuinely missed Sam.

“This guy’s name’s Bucky, you said?” Steve said.

Natasha seemed to perk up a little then, which Steve found suspicious. “Well, his real name is James Barnes. But everyone has always called him Bucky.”

Steve mulled this over – the name, and Natasha’s sudden change in demeanor. “You’re going out tonight, aren’t you,” Steve said.

“None of your business, Rogers,” she said, but after two years of friendship he could just make out the glint of hope in her eyes. He sighed again. He didn’t really want to be alone tonight. Not that sitting quietly in his or Natasha’s room doing homework all night was much better, but it was still something to do. He dreaded being in here alone tonight especially, for some reason; though his day had been fine, he felt an impending sense of his inability to effectively pass time, to fall asleep, to find anything at all to occupy his mind long enough or deeply enough to keep him from replaying the last day he’d been in Brooklyn, two years ago, for his parents’ funeral. The day was inexplicably at the fore of his mind, and he dreaded it, loathed its pull on his stomach, feared crying alone here, all night, in his whitewashed bleak little room, for the third time in two months.

“What did you tell him we were doing?”

 

They ended up at the college bar, with cheap beer and a single order of hot wings. Steve was never much of a drinker – it was only recently that he’d gained enough bulk to handle more than one or two drinks, and before then even two could destroy him so thoroughly that he had never really been able to develop a taste for alcohol.

            Bucky, on the other hand. Bucky – who had jovially insisted that Steve never call him James – seemed to come to life in its fullest right once he’d had a few beers in him. He laughed and joked and smiled so wide Steve couldn’t help but smile back – first, because it seemed rude not to, then, because Bucky’s smile was so infectious, his laugh so affecting, that it began to ring in Steve’s own chest, and he couldn’t help himself.

            They were swapping Natasha stories – Bucky’s from high school, Steve’s from just last year – when Steve was struck with a strange feeling of having known Bucky for much longer than the hour or so they’d been sitting at this bar table in the middle of this busy restaurant. If he’d been a little cockier, Steve would have ventured to say he’d known Bucky his whole life, but he liked to avoid getting cliché like that.

Bucky was finishing one particularly hilarious story about how badly Natasha had beaten this guy from their high school who had challenged her to beat him in a 100-meter dash, when he stopped and put his chin in his hand.

“What?” Steve asked, trying not to let the image of Bucky imitating the kid’s shocked face send him back into hysterics again.

“You haven’t known her long, have you,” Bucky said. His blue eyes, droopy and drunk and puppy-like, fixed on Steve’s and held them.

“No, not really, I guess.” Steve sipped his beer – his third! – and met Bucky’s eyes again. “I met her when I came here, and that was two years ago.”

“It’s pretty obvious,” Bucky said. “You don’t seem to have any idea what she’s done here.”

“What’s that?”

Bucky didn’t answer, just giggled. It was a smaller sound, less boisterous, coyer than his earlier guffaws. It too echoed inside Steve, but lower, in a place closer to his hips than his heart.

“Never mind that,” Bucky said. He remained in his position, head resting in hand and wrinkling the skin of his cheeks up and around his eyes, slumped quite dangerously to the right, so that Steve worried he’d fall off his barstool, for another moment, and then in a drunken, spastic motion, righted himself and signaled for the check.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said, looking past Steve.

“We’ve still got half a plate of hot wings here,” Steve said, thinking of the thinness of his wallet in his pocket and his half full belly and trying to justify spending all this money only to eat half of what he’d ordered.

“It’s okay, I’ve got it,” Bucky said, meeting Steve’s eyes with easy confidence.

“No, no,” Steve said, but Bucky held up a hand.

“Really, it’s okay.”  
            Steve pressed the matter – no, no, really, don’t be ridiculous, I have to pay something, well, here, at least take the ten, please? – finally thrusting the bill at Bucky, until Bucky seized Steve’s hand and Steve met his eyes.

“Really, it’s not a problem,” Bucky said. “I got you.”

Steve, taken aback by Bucky’s firm grasp – a warm hand, with tight and sure fingers that fit rather perfectly around Steve’s wrist – shut up. He let the waitress take the bill and Bucky’s twenty dollars before fixing Bucky under a hard gaze and said, “She told you, didn’t she.”

That seemed to pull Bucky back into sobriety, a little. His blue eyes focused a little more. “What makes you think that?”

“You’re taking pity on me,” Steve said, resentment rich in his voice, meant more for Natasha than Bucky. “You feel _bad_ for me.”

“Or,” Bucky said, reclaiming the billfold from the passing waitress, taking his change and leaving a generous tip on the table. “Maybe I’m just trying to be a friend.”

Steve watched Bucky clumsily pull his jacket – leather, like Steve’s – over his shoulders and stand up at the same time.

“Are you coming?” Bucky asked, looking at Steve expectantly. “This part Natasha didn’t plan, I can promise you that.”  
            He started for the door to the bar, more sure on his feet than Steve anticipated him being, and inexplicably, almost supernaturally, Steve found himself putting on his own jacket and following Bucky out of the bar, pulled by what he could only think to describe as a fraternal umbilical cord.

Bucky, a few steps ahead in his sure pace, led the way to the park, a couple of blocks from campus. He kept looking over his shoulder at Steve, smiling fondly as he stumbled along rather obviously drunker than Bucky. He stopped after the third or fourth time he turned his head and let Steve catch up to him, slung an arm over his shoulders, and pulled Steve into him.

“You all right there, Steve?” Bucky asked. His face was very close to Steve’s, so close that Steve could smell the beer on Bucky’s breath, hidden poorly by spearmint gum he must have started chewing after Steve caught up with him. His lips were slick and his eyes alit with a rather intimate and friendly joy that Steve found touchingly sincere. He had never had quite a whirlwind of a time like this on one of the “dates” Natasha set up; even his outing – in the middle of the day, for burgers – with Sam Wilson had been quiet despite what it had ultimately ended up meaning to both of them. This was worlds different from that, from the alcohol to the inky black sky that seemed to muffle the implications of their rapid closeness, to throw a safety net under them that only encouraged their descent into closeness.

Steve smiled at him. “Doing okay,” he said, and Bucky’s hand clapped down on his left shoulder.

“Cool. Good. Wanna go down to the pond? It’s real nice this time of night,” he said, but didn’t wait for Steve’s reply, just swerved them to the right, toward the water. Steve had no idea what time it was – they had met around seven, but the sky had darkened considerably since then, more than Steve thought possible for it to be anywhere near seven anymore.

He thought of asking Bucky – Steve hadn’t worn a watch since he started noticing the ticking of its secondhand and was confronted with the finality of death in a way all too metaphorical and unsettling for him – but Bucky didn’t seem so concerned with time. He didn’t seem to be aware of it. So, Steve decided not to worry.

The pond was quiet; the only sound was of the soft wind on the water’s surface. A bridge crossed over it and connected the banks, and Bucky walked up onto it, no longer leading Steve, but expecting him to follow, which he did. With a quick glance around, Bucky slipped something out of his pocket and brought it to his lips. It glinted in the moonlight: a flask.

“Want?” Bucky asked, proffering the silver flask to Steve. “There’s no one around,” he added, seemingly for encouragement.

Steve took it and drank from it – he met the sweet stinging taste of rum, and kept drinking. He kept down a long swig, then sputtered, sending Bucky into a spasm of elegant, wheedling guffaws.

“Easy there,” he said, taking the flask back. He slapped another hand on Steve’s back, slipped it up to the back of Steve’s neck, and pulled him upright. “Don’t need to puke, do you?” he asked. Steve noticed a twinge of genuine concern in Bucky’s lower lip as he shook his head.

“Good, good,” he said, and Steve wondered whether or not he’d imagined the soft way Bucky’s hand slid down the length of his back, if he’d only thought Bucky’s hand had grazed his ass as it returned to his side.

Bucky led them over to the edge of the bridge, where he leaned out over the railing and peered down into the water.

“You ever been drunk before, Steve?” Bucky asked, not looking at him.

“Once or twice,” Steve said. “I’ve, uh, tried to stay away from it in the past. It makes me sick.”

“You’ll be okay,” he said. “Just don’t take it so fast, is all.” He paused, took a swig from the flask. “I bet Natasha makes you take it fast.”

Steve considered this for a moment. “I guess so. She didn’t used to drink so much, before she met Clint. She was a little more straight-edge back then, I guess. We used to do homework on Friday nights, usually.”

“Nerds,” Bucky said. “And now?”

“Well, now,” Steve said. “Now there’s Clint and a party every weekend, and a lot of booze, and I just can’t keep up, so I don’t.”

Bucky smirked over his shoulder.

“I’m a lightweight, I guess,” Steve said, and Bucky smiled warmly at him.

“That’s okay,” he said. “I can teach you.”

Steve nodded. He was teetering on his feet; the very bridge seemed to be swaying under him. He stumbled forward, and slung his arms over the railing next to Bucky, who chuckled and handed him the flask.

Steve drank.

“Natasha and I got drunk once,” Bucky said. “Absolutely roaring, senior year of high school, in her bedroom while her parents were gone.” Steve watched him as he listened, saw Bucky’s shining eyes sweep lazily over the park. “She told me she wasn’t going to fuck me, and I said it hadn’t even crossed my mind, and I meant it.”

Steve nodded.

“She ever do that to you?”

“Nah. We’re just friends,” Steve said. “I don’t think she thinks of me like that.”

“Probably better for everyone. She can be pretty scary sometimes.”

“Yeah, and Clint makes her happy,” Steve said. Bucky took the flask back and drank.

“Finish it,” he said to Steve. It was at least one-third full.

Bucky slumped to the ground, fell on his ass to sit with his back against the railing, and Steve instantly went into a panic.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Bucky said when Steve began frantically patting his shoulder. “Just resting.”

Steve dropped beside him, flask in hand.

“Finish it,” Bucky said again, opening his eyes and smiling a small smile. “Or else I will, and then _I’ll_ be puking.”

Steve finished it, wincing as his first, too-large gulp pushed painfully down his throat, and set the flask on the floor beside him. He looked over at Bucky then, and found him with his eyes closed and his lips, top bigger than bottom, parted slightly. Bucky was a bit stocky – strong-looking by some force of nature, rather than as the result of regimented exercise; dark hair, light eyes set deep under black eyebrows; a sharp nose and a heavy square jaw, able to bear the weight of his wide cheekbones and thick cheeks. He had a bit of fat around his middle – it sat in a paunch beneath his white T-shirt and his unzipped black leather jacket. His legs were long and slender, with solid thighs and elegant calves. He was good-looking, Steve couldn’t argue with that. He was quite the opposite of Steve, who despite his newfound height and bulk – the latter of which was result of several different rigorous workout routines used to cope with his parents’ death – still felt like the scrawny little kid who got beat up in every alley in Brooklyn, in the parking lots of diners, outside movie theaters. He was still mentally the undesirable runt of a pack of unimportant tiny boys who served as prey for guys of Bucky’s size, guys like Clint Barton and Tony Stark, and even Thor Odinson.

Bucky looked over at Steve then and smiled. His mouth was wet and slack with alcohol, and he raised an arm out toward Steve.

“What’s the problem?” Steve asked, ducking as Bucky’s arm narrowly missed his head.

“Come here,” Bucky said. “Come on.”

Steve, hesitantly, slid closer to Bucky, whose arm fell heavily across Steve’s shoulders.

“I don’t want you to think I’m putting on airs here, trying to get on Natasha’s good side by hanging out with you,” Bucky said. Steve felt Bucky’s breath on his face and leaned closer, suddenly realizing the bite of the wind had chilled him, and craving the warmth.

“I don’t think that,” Steve said, realizing as he said it that even though he would have said it anyway if he’d meant it or not, that he wasn’t lying, that the thought never even crossed his mind.

“Good,” Bucky said, and Steve met his drooping blue eyes with his own and welcomed the warm, wet sweetness of Bucky’s lips on his.

Bucky pulled back first, but he wasn’t gone for long. His left hand came around to hold Steve’s face; he rolled up onto his knees to lean forward, push into Steve, who let Bucky come closer and closer without resisting until Bucky was all but on top of him.

Steve pulled away when he felt Bucky’s erection press into the inner seam of his jeans.

“We can go back to my room, if you want,” Steve said, half excited and half terrified. “Not even to … whatever.”

“Let’s go,” Bucky said, pressing one final kiss onto Steve’s mouth and leaning up. “I’m freezing, anyway.”

They ran back to Steve’s room – the first time he’d ever been thankful for his single –leaping off each other’s shoulders. Once Steve got the door open, it was only a few seconds before Bucky’s clothes were on the floor and he was kissing Steve’s neck, sending him into an incredibly confusing and exciting state of mind – Bucky’s hands down his pants was thrilling, Bucky’s erection pressing into Steve’s thigh was a tease of the worst kind – he had never felt this way before, and he was so absolutely sure he loved it.

He stopped to unbutton his shirt, to yank his pants off his ankles, to fall on his bed and let Bucky fall on top of him, their limbs heavy from drinking, clumsy and handsy and excited. Bucky told Steve somewhere in the fray that he’d only done this once before, that it wasn’t a problem, just so new, and Steve remembered agreeing before taking Bucky in his mouth and sucking him until he pulled out of Steve’s mouth and came all over his chest.

Steve barely had a chance to clean himself off before Bucky went down on him, and his mouth was warmer and more enthusiastic than Steve was ready for – he came in a heated, intense second, so fast that he wasn’t able to pull out like Bucky had, and came in his mouth instead, breathing a quiet _Bucky_ as he did.

“Sorry,” Steve managed to say, before Bucky bent down and kissed him, stuck his tongue in Steve’s mouth, pressed the lengths of their bodies together. Steve took it as an acceptance of his apology.

“You smell nice,” Bucky sighed into Steve’s ear, and Steve muttered thanks as he let Bucky pull their bodies under the covers. He was warm against Steve’s back, which Steve rather liked. He liked the weight of Bucky’s heavy arm on his torso, how it hindered his breathing, and how the pull of Bucky’s own lungs made up for that, helped match their inhalations and exhalations and ease him to sleep.

It was the best sleep of Steve’s life, or at least since his parents died, and it only made it better to wake up and find Bucky still sleeping in his bed, his mouth open and his breathing coming in adorable, quiet rasps.

There were two texts from Natasha on Steve’s phone, which he found out of the pocket of his jeans, lying haphazardly on the floor.

 _Have a good night?_ she’d written in the first one. It was from ten o’clock last night. The second read, _guess so, since you haven’t responded yet. ;)_

 _We’ll…grab lunch_ , Steve typed out. He sent it, then turned back to the bed and found Bucky lying on his back, staring up at Steve through half-open eyes. He was smiling.

“What are you doing over there?” he asked. His words were lazy and slurred into each other, but they were spoken with an inviting warmth that made Steve aware of the cool bedroom air on his bare back. “Come back here,” Bucky said, and Steve didn’t have to be asked twice. He curled back into the warm, soft curve of Bucky’s arm, and tried not to smile too hard as Bucky cuddled in closer, pressing his nose into Steve’s neck and a kiss into his collarbone.


End file.
